A remarkable thing happened the other day. I was driving home from the post office and when I stopped at the stop sign on Sixth Avenue, at the Elm Street intersection, there was a pedestrian crossing the street! He was crossing Sixth Avenue right in front of me. Really! I saw him with my own eyes. I’m not making this up!
Now, you may ask, “What makes this remarkable? What’s remarkable about a pedestrian crossing the street?” I’d answer that it’s an extremely rare occurrence to see a pedestrian at this intersection when I stop. Not Haley’s Comet rare, but really, really unlikely to occur.
Probably 99.95% of the time that I stop at that sign, coming from either direction, there are no pedestrians at all and hence no reason to stop, except for the stop sign, of course. I don’t know for certain that others see pedestrians there as infrequently as I do but it would be unusual if I’m the only one who practically never sees anyone crossing Sixth Avenue when i stop at that intersection. In my experience, the occurrence is so infrequent as to bear remarking. Hence this blog post.
There didn’t used to be a stop sign for traffic on Sixth Avenue at the Elm Street intersection. It was previously a two-way stop. Only Elm Street traffic had to stop before pulling out onto the busier Sixth Avenue.
Then the Stop Signs were added for traffic on Sixth Avenue. We were told that the occasional tourist had difficulty crossing Sixth Avenue and this was the reason for the new stop signs stopping all traffic, day and night, on Sixth avenue. The occasional tourist. More correctly, the occasional tourist who apparently, doesn’t know how to cross a street unless traffic is stopped.
I can’t help but wonder if the “authorities” did any sort of research before plopping the new stop signs there or if they just said, “Hey, let’s put up some new stop signs.”
In any event, The signs are there now and each time I stop, I pay what I think of as the “Stop Sign Tax.” The Stop Sign Tax is that little bit it costs me, that it didn’t cost me previously, to go through that intersection at Sixth and Elm. A little bit of time, a little bit of additional wear and tear on my vehicle’s brakes and drive train and that extra fuel that must be expended starting again after my stop. The environment too is further taxed by the extra vehicle emissions, above and beyond what cruising through the intersection without stopping would cause. Stop signs are not green.
I pay another Stop Sign Tax at the corner of South Navajo Drive and Aspen Street.
This used to be a one-way stop (only traffic from Aspen onto South Navajo had to stop) until someone decided to stop traffic on South Navajo Drive as well, turning it into a three-way stop. What caused these signs to be erected? For more than 30 years, I’ve lived on South Navajo Drive and toodled right past the Aspen street intersection on my way home from the store, post office or whatever and this intersection was not any kind of a problem of which I was aware.
Was there a sudden drastic jump in traffic accidents at that intersection? What justification was put forth for the new stop signs on South Navajo Drive at Aspen? I’m aware that the authorities were trying to discourage people from using Aspen Street but the new signs on South Navajo help Aspen Street traffic as much as discourage it. Vehicles coming off Aspen onto South Navajo now find it easier going as South Navajo traffic now has to stop at Aspen.
If the new signs were meant to discourage Aspen Street traffic, they’ve failed. The only people really inconvenienced are persons like myself who live on South Navajo Drive and its intersecting streets beyond Aspen and who now have to pay this additional stop sign tax on our way to and from home.
It makes me wonder if anyone in city government actually does a cost/benefit analysis before saddling the public with yet more stop signs. There are very real costs associated with each stop made by a vehicle. They may be small but they are numerous and we have to pay them in perpetuity. Stop signs, once erected, will probably never come down, even after the original “need” has long since passed into history.
I mean, if they put them up with so little (apparent) justification, I can hardly imagine them worrying over whether the older ones are still necessary.
When I first moved to this town, there were only two intersections (outside of a very large mobile home park) of which I am aware that had stop signs. We had no traffic signals and the population was larger than today. Somehow, we managed. Are drivers today so much worse than times past that we must be micro-managed in our travels?
Good government should “First, Do No Harm.” Any new restrictions on the populace, be they stop signs or Keep Off The Grass signs, should be well thought out and justified, not someone’s whim.
Even if some rare, hapless tourist grew impatient waiting for a break in the traffic before crossing Sixth Avenue, does that justify the stop signs which inconvenience every single vehicle traversing the Sixth Avenue thoroughfare? Does it justify stopping traffic 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including in the dead of night, including when it’s not even tourist season?!?
Much of the Stop Sign Tax I pay is unnecessary and unjustified. And it’s only getting worse.
Now, lest I be accused of being insensitive to the plight of the hapless tourists, let me tell you how I’d have preferred to see this handled, if indeed, a fix was in fact needed.
I’d have hung a blinking orange light at the intersection visible to Sixth Avenue traffic with a “press this button to cross” switch at each corner. Pressing the button would turn the flashing orange (caution) light into a flashing red (stop) light for 30 seconds and the pedestrian would be able to cross the street, as traffic on Sixth Avenue would stop for the flashing light. The stop signs for traffic on Elm Street would be replaced by a perpetually flashing red light for traffic on Elm. Thus a single traffic light would replace the signs and serve to control traffic from all four directions.
A traffic signal, as described, would have the virtue of stopping Sixth Avenue traffic only when someone actually needed to cross the street, not 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, as do stop signs.
Would a traffic signal cost more up front than a couple of stop signs? Absolutely. But it would “pay for itself” over time in avoided stop sign taxes and moreover would show that the city fathers have some appreciation for the value of people’s time. The latter is no small consideration.